![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Inspiration and its manic-festations
Jan. 14th, 2014 12:18 pmAnyone who's seriously tried to do creative work will tell you that it's difficult. (Most people who haven't, conversely, will think it's got to be pretty easy - you're just sitting around making things up, right? But I suspect that has a lot to do with our culture's devaluation of creativity, and frankly it's a discussion for another day.) It's difficult and demanding in a different way from standard, do-a-job-and-draw-a-paycheque work. The generative process doesn't conform to a schedule, it's not a case of "I can play with clay for five hours and have three sculptures ready for firing at the end of it". Sometimes you spend days (or weeks, or months) gestating a project, working hard to make it grow, only to discover that it's missing something vital and is essentially stillborn. And sometimes (all too rarely, but sometimes) you'll be doing your everyday activities, walking to the post office or whistling in the shower or about to drift off to sleep, and the tumblers will suddenly align in the back of your head and the key will turn and then OH MY GOD INSPIRATION I HAVE TO MUMBLE THIS SEMI-COHERENTLY INTO MY PHONE BEFORE IT'S GONE. (I suspect the bedmates of creative people must be some of the most patient people in the world. Also, I may need to invest in a waterproof phone case.)
In my case, last night that very thing happened and I suddenly had the answer to a question I'd been pondering, on and off, for more than a month. What makes it especially interesting (and gives rise to the "tumblers" metaphor, above) is how many layers such inspiration can have. The question ("What are you going to call your writing blog?") wasn't particularly important on the surface, but now that I have the answer, it's given shape to a number of questions and ideas I had that were previously far more formless. Some of this is almost certainly the power of naming to shape ideas, but some of it is, I think, the bottom-to-top nature of this kind of inspiration - it works itself out in your unconscious, slowly winding itself together through your subconscious until suddenly it pops out of the soil into your conscious brain, and you have an entire network of roots to plumb. (Pardon my mixed metaphors. It's not like I'm a writer or anything. :P)
On a more personal note (if also related to the wonderful way inspiration tends to send its roots into everything), I finally finished the short story that was supposed to be a day-or-two distraction and ended up taking two weeks and turning into a novelette before it was done. I'm actually pretty pleased with it, too. It needs some polishing, but with a bit of work - and copyediting, and a cover, because if I'm doing the self-publishing route, I'll be damned if it's not going to be professional - I think it will be saleable. And given that it's the first thing I've written all the way through with the active intention of putting it up for sale, that's a pretty positive outcome. Fingers crossed it doesn't turn out that I'm completely wrong and my beta readers (note to self: acquire some beta readers) send it back with a giant "HAHAHAHAA" scrawled on the first page. Metaphorically.
Funny moment: after finishing the story, and giving it a once-over, my first thought was - I shit you not - "Okay, time to head over to GoodReads and mark that as 'read'." I'm...honestly not sure if that's a good sign, or a bad sign, or just an indication of precisely how much time I've spent on GoodReads in the past year (reading and rating 109 stories in a year will instill certain habits, I suppose), but it made me laugh.
In my case, last night that very thing happened and I suddenly had the answer to a question I'd been pondering, on and off, for more than a month. What makes it especially interesting (and gives rise to the "tumblers" metaphor, above) is how many layers such inspiration can have. The question ("What are you going to call your writing blog?") wasn't particularly important on the surface, but now that I have the answer, it's given shape to a number of questions and ideas I had that were previously far more formless. Some of this is almost certainly the power of naming to shape ideas, but some of it is, I think, the bottom-to-top nature of this kind of inspiration - it works itself out in your unconscious, slowly winding itself together through your subconscious until suddenly it pops out of the soil into your conscious brain, and you have an entire network of roots to plumb. (Pardon my mixed metaphors. It's not like I'm a writer or anything. :P)
On a more personal note (if also related to the wonderful way inspiration tends to send its roots into everything), I finally finished the short story that was supposed to be a day-or-two distraction and ended up taking two weeks and turning into a novelette before it was done. I'm actually pretty pleased with it, too. It needs some polishing, but with a bit of work - and copyediting, and a cover, because if I'm doing the self-publishing route, I'll be damned if it's not going to be professional - I think it will be saleable. And given that it's the first thing I've written all the way through with the active intention of putting it up for sale, that's a pretty positive outcome. Fingers crossed it doesn't turn out that I'm completely wrong and my beta readers (note to self: acquire some beta readers) send it back with a giant "HAHAHAHAA" scrawled on the first page. Metaphorically.
Funny moment: after finishing the story, and giving it a once-over, my first thought was - I shit you not - "Okay, time to head over to GoodReads and mark that as 'read'." I'm...honestly not sure if that's a good sign, or a bad sign, or just an indication of precisely how much time I've spent on GoodReads in the past year (reading and rating 109 stories in a year will instill certain habits, I suppose), but it made me laugh.
